The present invention relates to a broadcast verification system for verifying whether programs and commercial messages are broadcast from broadcast stations according to a predetermined schedule.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 9-277542, filed Oct. 9, 1997 and Japanese Patent Application No. 9-277543, filed Oct. 9, 1997, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
In general, many commercial messages are inserted in programs in television broadcasting, radio broadcasting, cable broadcasting, and the like. Commercial messages are broadcast on the basis of a contract concerning broadcasting times (time slots if broadcasting times cannot be specified as in sports relay broadcasting), contents of the commercial message, and the like, which is made between, for example, a broadcast station and a sponsor through an advertising agency. If a commercial message with predetermined contents is not broadcast at a predetermined time, it means that the broadcast station has broken the contract. A commercial message with predetermined contents may not be broadcast at a predetermined time owing to some mistake in the broadcast station, a fault in a program editing/broadcasting system, or the like. For this reason, the advertising agency, in particular, must check whether the contract is properly fulfilled.
Conventionally, all the received broadcast contents are recorded on a VCR, or the like, and an operator plays the VCR to visually check whether predetermined commercial messages have been broadcast. The sponsor is then notified of the contents checked by the operator. If a predetermined commercial message has not been broadcast according to the contract, the sponsor demands compensation from the broadcast station for the breach of the contract.
According to the above conventional method, the operator must display all the broadcast contents recorded on a VCR or the like on a monitor to visually check them. These operations require great perseverance and concentration. In addition, there is no guarantee that the operator will not overlook something.
There is an automatic commercial message verification system in which a start of the commercial message is detected based on a change of the audio signal and the video signal and an energy distribution pattern of the detected commercial message is compared with plural registered energy distribution patterns.
However, this system cannot accurately discriminate plural commercial messages.
Further, as described in Japanese Patent Disclosure (KOKAI) NO. 53-11503, there is another broadcast verification system using an audio signal. At a transmitter side of this system, a particular frequency band is removed from the audio signal, a digital information signal for indicating the contents of the broadcast program is formed using predetermined frequencies among the removed particular frequency band, and the digital information signal is superposed on the audio signal to be broadcast. At a receiver side, a band pass filter extracts the digital information signal from the broadcast audio signal and it is verified whether a predetermined program is broadcast in accordance with a predetermined schedule based on the extracted digital information signal. This system has an inevitable drawback in which an information of the audio signal is lost and the quality of the sound must be lowered somewhat. In order to minimize the affect of the degradation of sound quality, it is necessary to narrow the removed bandwidth. However, the amount of information to be superposed is accordingly decreased if the removed bandwidth is narrowed.
As described above, according to the conventional method, an operator records all the contents broadcast from broadcast stations, including commercial messages, on a video cassette recorder or the like, and plays back all the recorded broadcast contents to check them. That is, the operator manually performs unimaginative operations. For this reason, problems are posed in terms of work efficiency and reliability.
The conventional automatic commercial message verification system has a drawback in which plural commercial messages cannot be accurately discriminated.
Further, the broadcasting verification system using an audio signal has a drawback in which the sound quality is degraded.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a broadcast verification system which can automatically check whether predetermined contents have been properly broadcast from a broadcast station.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a commercial message verification system which can automatically check whether a predetermined commercial message has been contained in a program broadcast from a broadcast station at a predetermined time.
According to the present invention, there is provided a broadcast verification system comprising a video creation device for creating a video signal to be broadcast from a broadcast station; and a verification device for receiving the broadcast signal broadcast from the broadcast station and verifying whether the video signal created by the video creation device contained in the broadcast signal, wherein the video creation device comprises ID information adding means for adding ID information indicating contents of the video signal to the video signal at a predetermined position, and the verification device comprises ID information extracting means for extracting the ID information from the broadcast signal; and determination means for checking on the basis of the ID information extracted by the ID information extracting means whether the video signal is broadcast according to a predetermined schedule.
According to the broadcast verification system of the present invention, since ID information indicating the contents of a broadcast signal is added to the broadcast signal, the contents of the broadcast signal can be specified on the reception side by extracting the ID information from the vibration signal on the reception side, thereby automatically checking whether predetermined contents have been properly broadcast from the broadcast station.
Additional objects and advantages of the present invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the present invention.
The objects and advantages of the present invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.